I’ve never had the pleasure of having a black person as a best friend, or anything beyond a casual acquaintance. I’ve never dated a black woman, nor have I ever asked one out. I grew up in the ’50s and ’60s in an all-white suburb of Chicago. I went to an all-white Catholic boys high school and a nearly all-white private college.

I’ve never lived in a town that is more than 10% black, nor have I ever lived in a city run by blacks. I’ve never had a black next-door neighbor, nor have I lived in a neighborhood where blacks were more than a scattered presence. I have never had occasion to visit an all-black neighborhood or attend an event where a majority of the crowd is black. And I’ve never been approached by a black man while walking down a dark street at night, wondering if I should cross the street or not.

I suppose this makes me sheltered, naive, even ignorant of the way the world works and the how the racial divide colors our attitudes in our everyday lives. Frankly, I don’t care. I’ve never cared. Race has never been a factor in any decision I’ve made about where to live, where to work, or who my friends are. I’ve never been about to sign a lease to an apartment and stopped short, saying to myself, “Gee — maybe I should try to find a place that has more diversity.” Nor have I ever turned down a job because there weren’t enough black people working there. I’ve never avoided blacks, nor have I made a conscious effort to cultivate a friendship of a black person because I believed it would expand my horizons, or make me — somehow — a better person.

Of course, I can afford this attitude because I’m white. I doubt very much that there has ever been a black person in the history of America who has lived a life without thinking about race in some way or another almost every day. But I don’t dwell on such matters. Why should I? Because it proves I “care”? Spare me the sanctimony. I don’t have to prove anything to anybody, least of all those who feel it necessary to tell the rest of us how insensitive or racist we are because we don’t weep for the unfortunates of the world.

Besides, it is impossible to discuss race in this country. There is one, and only one, narrative about race, and if you don’t subscribe to it, debate is closed off and the apostate branded a racist. An exaggeration? The exaggeration is in the constant misconstruing of intent and twisting of words by those who wish to control the conversation about race for political or other purposes. Eric Holder was wrong. It’s not a lack of courage that keeps us from discussing race, it is a lack of respect that refuses one side the legitimacy of their views.

For example, some of the issues raised in John Derbyshire’s article in Taki’s Magazine that got him fired from National Review need vetting. Yes, much of Derbyshire’s screed was ignorant, uninformed, and considered racist by many. But reading comments on a dozen blog posts discussing the article shows that Derbyshire’s “advice” to his children about black people struck a chord with many white Americans. As with most internet comments, there was the usual mix of stupidity, intolerance, and even blatant hate. But that does not obviate the fact that there is a perception that at least some of what Derbyshire wrote rang true. And true or false, it’s real and should be dealt with.

57 Comments, 33 Threads

1.
Fail Burton

Funny about the diversity remark and the apartment. I was watching a news report about some planned suburb in Germany and some of the people living there lamented the lack of diversity, meaning people of other colors. The idea that color in and of itself brings anything to a table that can be predicted or especially that it has on this default POSITIVE positioning rather than a neutral one is absurd; diversity attached to color is nonsense – white communities around the world are the most diverse in their interests of any cultures on the planet, bar none.

We’re talking about cultures and value systems here. A black person in Brazil has nothing to do with a black person in Cairo has nothing to do with a black person in Detroit. Black people feel a connection and those people in Germany apparently believe in some racialist nonsense, albeit positively, but it’s all nonsense.

You’re absolutely right. Let’s not get dragged into other people’s foolishness just because they say we must. You’re also right about Derbyshire – however inadvisable his foolishness, the point he tried to make, and used 3 links to make it, is that it’s the same nonsense being bruited about in the black community and press every day. In that sense, the Left saw their own ugliness in Derbyshire and didn’t like it; the reason they didn’t like it because they’re unflinching hypocrites, unable or unwilling to employ tools of self-criticism with context and proportion in apparently even the smallest way. Or maybe they just don’t read the black press, which almost unbelievable in its disdain for white people and with philosophies where the idea of a connection by skin appear and disappear according to need. This so white people can be hoisted up for slavery in 1800 but not black folks for crime in 2012; but a positive thing – then the connection comes right back.

Wow. Thanks for the wisdom, there, middle-aged White Guy with no experience of Black Americans… Because if there’s one thing people come to PJ Media for, it’s self-indulgent hand-wringing.

I can get that from Anderson Cooper. Or Bill O’Reilly. Or Rachel Maddow.

You talk about internet comments as “the usual mix of stupidity, intolerance, and even blatant hate.” In my opinion, PJ Media readers are largely intelligent and their comments are often interesting. I’m not talking about the “Obama Zulu” troll stuff, those comments are boring trash and should be culled by PJM management.

But many sober PJ Media readers expressed concern and anger over rampant Black Criminality, Black Racism and the shocking collapse of modern Black American culture. Those are all valid, fascinating topics that I don’t see discussed anywhere else. I often feel the commenters are some of the most truthful writers on this site.

Compared to those challenging comments, your piece was utterly dull and added nothing to the discussion.

Except for those of us who claim to be genetically descended from simian ancestors. (No, not me.)

In my opinion, it’s the fringe 5% who make blacks and whites look bad. On a one to one basis I believe that the other 95% of us give people a chance (regardless of race) to prove their integrity and character before we judge them to be something less than helpful to society.

In all of life there are approximately 20 different amino acids . Proteins combined in hundreds of thousands of ways to form life. Human beings have eighty thousand proteins. All life shares some common proteins. Humans and plants for instance.

The odds that humans descended from another species are a billion billion billion repeated twenty-nine times, to one.

I’m a mathematician, and if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s the abuse of mathematics. The probability that humans descended from other species is 100%, because it happened. (A course in biology or anthropology would be helpful here.) There is little that makes life more difficult for conservatives like me than when fellow conservatives confirm liberal stereotypes regarding conservative ignorance of science. I doubt there are many people on this website who are much more observant of Biblical commandments than I. But at least I understand that the Bible is not a science textbook. Flat-eartherism is so negative 6th century.

Darwinian Evolution and Adam and Eve are not contradictory. If in fact we modern humans evolved from a non-human predecessor species via a mutation, it likely only happened once. There would only be one Eve mother to us all after that mutation. And I thought Science had it settled that all human DNA came from one female who lived in Africa at a point of time that is scientifically determinable, at least withih a tolerable margin of error (a few thousand years?) So how, Surak, can you say that anyone who believes we all came from one woman who gave birth to a second generation that led to us all, is anti-Evolution and anti-Science since both, through both logic an evidence have proven the Adam and Eve story to be true? I don’t see how it could not be true if you believe in evolution, which I do. The eternal universe story is a bust (given the Big Bang and all) (see “Let there be Light”) and multiple mutations leading to multiple Eves with many of us being unrelated being a bust, and Noah’s flood story having been archeologically verified, and Moses and Christ being historical personages, how can anyone doubt the teachings of the Bible all have a basis in scientific and historical fact? Science tells us everyday that the basic traditional teachings of Christianity are true, while other religions (Hinduism, Native American folklore, Nordic, Greek and Roman mytholgy, Aborigine dreamtime, etc.) have never been verified scientifically, except through drug induced hallucination. I don’t get the “Religious are anti-Scientific” line since science as far as I can tell has always verified my Religion as far as any traditional belief can be verified. It certainly has not knocked it down much. Even the science behind the Shroud of Turin is more in favor of its origin at the time and the place of Christ than otherwise, and the photo image on it of an historically accurate crucifiction (which none of our modern crucifixes share, going back to the Middle Ages)has no scientific or false historical explanation. I vote for Darwin and Genesis as being entirely compatible, and I defy you to show how they contradict. (Note, the Pope accepted Darwin, a seminary student, along time ago. Someone has been lying to you and you are too scientifically untrained to see through the lie).

Coming from a multi-racial family I am always amazed at how children work with each other and do not seem to show deference to one another no matter the color. Case in point, one of our children did not realize she had a problem until it was pointed out to her at school that she was black. She never really thought about it until a teacher made her realize that she should be upset about her ancestors slave history. There was alot of discussion about and anger about it. We were taught that while we may be different, we were all part of humanity and that the only thing that would stop us from being where we wanted to be in life was ourselves and our child’s mind was tainted from that view by a teacher. She will never be the same innocent child. It made very angry for a white teacher to incite such confusion in my childs mind after we worked so hard to giver her an open and free mind. Maybe she would have had to go through that later in life, but I would have preferred her to be “enlightend” within context in our house. Maybe it was my fault thinking that we had progressed beyond that. Maybe I was naive. But you are right, we should be able to discuss it as humans without all the rhetoric and preconceived notions on both sides of the issue. I know that white people today are not responsible for the actions of those that came before us. God does not hold others sins against us, so why should we assume on either side that one is a racist because of the color of their skin. And, because of the ilk of those like Sharpton, Jackson, and others, we still are not going to be able to talk about race. It is sad we just can’t follow our childrens lead and lead by example of their open hearts.

I’m a Serbian-American, and yes, I’m an unapologetic Serb nationalist. In other words, I believe that Serbs have a right to exist and have a right to retain their identity as Serbs.

My ancestors suffered under the Turkish yoke for TWICE as long as African-Americans lived under the “peculiar institution” on this side of the pond.

None of us profited from enslavement of anybody else.

I am way beyond fed up with all of this “white guilt” nonsense.

None of us are asking for “reparations” from anybody. On the other hand, we ARE concerned about a resurgence of the Islamic caliphate, via stealthy Islamic infiltration, in what is supposedly the modern world.

“I doubt very much that there has ever been a black person in the history of America who has lived a life without thinking about race in some way or another almost every day.”

Therein lies the entire problem.

Whites have largely, like yourself, moved beyond race, and it’s not something we need to apologize for since it is largely a function of being White in a majority White country.

All too many Blacks are sadly indoctrinated by the media and their own internal voices,(Nation of Islam, Reverend Wright, Al Sharpton, et al),to see EVERYTHING through a prism of their racial identity, and like their similarly self-hobbled White counterparts, they are supremely tiresome, stupid, and offensive.

Sadly for the rest of us, these two subsets of dullards make it their life’s work to remind each other of their differences, and in doing so they manage to validate each others’ warped worldview.

From these defective mentalities flow the poisonous constructs of “Black culture” and “White Nationalism”, which entrap people into behaviors and attitudes intrinsically inimical to any kind of civilized society without eventually resorting to genocidal ethnic warfare of the most savage kind.

A reasonable neighborhood watch Black person would conclude that any strange white kid in a black hoodie wandering around in the rain in a residential area at night was up to no good,(looking to buy dope would be MY guess), and would be justified in following him and asking him what he was doing.

But when the races are reversed,(as they effectively have been, and furthered with the patently absurd “White Hispanic” canard), and race gets focused on as the sole determinant for the encounter, people who should know better lose their effin’ minds.

We are rapidly approaching a point in our nation where one’s skin will be one’s uniform, and if that be the case, Black people in America will be in for a Hell unlike anything that even the likes of the New Black Panther Party could not fathom.

Everybody would be well advised to just cool it.

It ain’t REALLY all about the color of your skin…stop thinking that it is, and tell those who cannot stop obsessing over it to STFU. (That means YOU, too, Eric Holder).

You’re surrounded by a sea of White people, in case you hadn’t noticed.

I remember a radio show, many years back, with a white host and a black guest. The standard narrative was being expressed.

Finally the white host said something to the effect of, “Look. If you’re willing to agree I didn’t enslave your ancestors, I’m willing to agree that you’re not the person who mugged my nephew last week. Now can we get on with the show?”

(And I thought, and thought again, about whether to push the ‘submit’ button on this. Obviously, the discourse is hazardous.)

I spent 13 years in the US military. Anyone who has military experience has had prolonged contact with people from all walks of life and of every shade of color. What I learned in the military is that no one racial or ethnic group cornered the market on a$$holes. I admit to being an equal-opportunity bigot against a$$holes.

Just to annoy the racists and racialists (those who put racial considerations into everything), I always check the “other” block on forms and write in “human” as my race. They hate that. Everyone is supposed to be pigeonholed into some racial category for whatever racist reason. I refuse to play alone.

There is only one race and that is human. Skin color means nothing, except to those where it means everything. I’m not one of them and never will be.

same experience in army too. truth be told white people have, as a rule, treated me worse than any other race. if I would hate someone over skin color I would hate whites.
best friend through high school was black, and neither of us gave a damn. I don’t even remember talking about it.

While there is no effective way to screen out a**holes, the US military does do some screening to exclude people (of any race) with serious criminal records, as well as those who lack mental capacity. And people who aren’t willing and able to do hard work probably wouldn’t even try to enlist in the first place.

What I’m saying is that, by and large, in the military you will be exposed to a better class of people (of all races) than you are likely to meet just at random in civilian life.

I don’t have a “best friend” now or in the past. I do have several friends amoung all the people I know. At times in my life I have had very good friends that are black. In the Army I trusted my life to several black officers and enlisted men. But, I am really tired of clowns like Sharpton and J. Jackson droning on about how bad white people treat Afro-Americans. Oh wait! I like Americans of any color as long as they are honest, hard working and reasonable people. Hyphenated people suck. Anyone that would join or support the New Black Panther Party doesn’t deserve spit for a cocktail.

You life has been remarkably sheltered, Mr. Moran. I am old enough to have had a great-grandfather who freed his slaves before THE War because slavery was incompatible with his Christian beliefs and a grandmother who saw freedmen, carpetbaggers, and scalawags burn her family’s house down during the election of 1876 — and to have heard that story first hand from her. The same grandmother who knew all of the relatively few black women in our small West Coast city, received many of them socially at our house at a time when no supposedly non-racist Westerners would have considered such a thing, and whose passing at 100 occasioned some of the most sincere notes and personal calls of condolence from them I have known. And who washed my mouth out with soap for using the ‘n’ word when I was 5 or 6 (in the ‘eeny meeny’ counting game) because only white trash said things like that. Yet, if you’d asked her directly about race, she probably would have said rather racist things by modern standards.

I lived through the years of the Civil Rights movement and, as a college student in Virigina, participated to a limited degree in protests against segregation. While I have never had a black “best” friend, I have had several black friends who have been part of close circles. I have had a black roommate. I have dated — until external pressure stopped it — two black women. In one case, her family expressed great hostility and opposition, and in the other case, other black students, primarily female, physically threatened her for ‘dating white’. I had a similar experience in the Army when I dated a Native American woman whose father was adamantly opposed to his daughter dating a white solider.

I also was transformed though experiences in university and working life from a supporter of a sort of affirmative action — at least a variety that would not have resulted in lower standards — to an adamant opponent of it.

Race, like the rest of life, is complicated, and many of us have attitudes that are complex and include many ‘truths’ which don’t really play well together. When I read Derbyshire’s “Talk” essay, thought it was a bit over the top, but much of it was quite true as far as it goes. The whole thing was completely overblown in my opinion.

Interestingly, one of the comments I have heard from blacks consistently over the past 50 years is that they’d rather deal with Southerners (or those who were raised by Southerners) than with Northerners or Westerners. The reason given was that Southerners were more honest about their feelings – they didn’t smile to your face and refuse to sell you a house behind the back or redline the neighborhoods.

I’d love for Americans to be able to have honest conversations about race, but they would have to be about race and culture. Those conversations would be hurtful to many – both white and black – and I’m not sure anyone is really ready for them. Certainly not while Obama is in office and the disgraceful Holder henchthing is running the Justice Department.

I’ve never had the pleasure of having a black person as a best friend, or anything beyond a casual acquaintance. I’ve never dated a black woman, nor have I ever asked one out. I grew up in the ’50s and ’60s in an all-white suburb of Chicago. I went to an all-white Catholic boys high school and a nearly all-white private college.

My experience is nearly the polar opposite. I grew up in the 50′s and 60′s in a suburb of Chicago, where the kids I hung out with were predominantly Jewish or black. I suspect for most white people, that would not be the norm.

My “friends” became close because we played football, baseball and basketball together. We wore the same uniform and that was what mattered to me.

If one were to look at my Facebook or LinkedIn page, even today, it will contain a heavy contingent of Jewish friends and a number of blacks and Hispanics.

I don’t give a Tinker’s Dam what color, creed, age, or any other “divider” characteristic was passed down to you by your parents, your genes, or how many days have passed on your calendar. If you wear the same uniform as I do, you are my teammate.

If you spit on that uniform, if you tear down that team, if you are a snake and try to undermine that team…I also don’t care what genes you carry, I’m very likely to dislike you intensely.

I don’t like traitors, I value loyalty highly. Because I have been close to nice people, I have no hesitation to bump chests with bad people. Jerks come in all sizes and colors.

Racism is not a one-directional highway. In fact, I would suggest that unlike my boyhood years in the 50′s and 60′s, racism is much, much, much more overt against whites by blacks today.

But, my theory is that this is tied less to color than it is to radical leftism. The less a black person adheres to radicalism, the less likely they are to think, act and speak in racist terms. The more closely tied to radical leftism, the more they think, act and speak in the language of “victims and villains”.

It is radical leftism, the scourge of the treasonous and traitorous small c communism that is the disease that is keeping black society from fully assimilating and is the number 1 cause of the “failure to thrive” condition in poor black neighborhoods. By being attached to radical leftism, black society is intentionally made into entitlement junkies, who spend their lives on their knees begging for the crumbs tossed at them by those who want to keep them divided and dependent.

The less one is attached to that narrative, the less bitter, the less angry, the less victimized, the less dependent…the more likely they are to succeed and to not view white society as the devil.

My ancestors did not own slaves. They did not participate in any way, shape or form in slavery. They came to this country with not enough money to own much of anything, much less other people.

It IS racism to look at the color of the skin of my people and tie ANY elements of slavery to them. For people who do not wish to be judged as “criminal” simply because of the color of their skin, doing so every day is the height of hypocrisy.

Racism and prejudice today is not even a distant cousin of racism of 50 years ago. It is predominantly a tool, a prop…foisted upon America (and Israel) by the radical left in order to keep up the charade of “victims and villains”.

Anti-semitism today is a tool of the left.

This is not to say that NO fools who wallow ignorance and hatred come from the right of center on the political spectrum. Those despicable cretins still exist. They just are not the nucleus around which any large segment of society orbits. They are generally fringe outcasts.

However, on the radical left, they ARE the epicenter of an active fault line. The radical left intentionally fans the flames of hatred and division, because their very existence depends upon picking at 400 year old scabs and keeping them bleeding.

Race hucksters and pasty white small c communist scab-pickers make up the worst element of this society and they intentionally try to keep it from healing. Until we are able to say this aloud, and confront the people spitting on our team uniform, we keep feeding racism by our silence.

I’ve never lived in a town that is more than 10% black, nor have I ever lived in a city run by blacks. I’ve never had a black next-door neighbor, nor have I lived in a neighborhood where blacks were more than a scattered presence. I have never had occasion to visit an all-black neighborhood or attend an event where a majority of the crowd is black. And I’ve never been approached by a black man while walking down a dark street at night, wondering if I should cross the street or not.

I have done all these things. The city was as corrupt as any this country has ever seen. My next door neighbors were wonderful people and very kind and generous. And, I have had to defend myself in a few situations where the attacker was black.

Skin color doesn’t frighten me. Nor does it guilt-trip me. I don’t have to prove my lack of prejudice by pandering to any group, sucking up to them to “prove” that I’m not a racist. That’s a radical leftist parlor game.

The sooner we stop playing their game, using their words, embracing their guilt-trip games, the sooner we can move on to all wearing the America uniform and we can respond appropriately to those who spit on it.

You want to know who went out on a limb and said that Congress was filled with communists wearing the wrong uniform? Alan West. (these are small c communists, a point that needs to be driven home, but nonetheless…), and it’s interesting, we may not have noticed something.

What color(s) do you associate first when you think of Alan West?

Me too. And, it isn’t black.

THAT’S when you know that there is a path away from racism. The small c communists will never let you walk on that path without a fight.

I once believed in the words of Martin Luther King about not judging a man/woman by the color of their skin but by their character and actions. Obama and Holder have changed that view for me. This administration has damaged race relations so bad they may never recover.
To think most folks voted Obama to show they wanted to look beyond skin color and not be racist. yet racism is the one thing Obama has brought with him from Chicago.

“Yes, much of Derbyshire’s screed was ignorant, uninformed”
Coming from a blowhard who just got done admitting he has actually NO experience or knowledge of black people, this is extremely rich.
And here I thought this blog leaned right?
Guess it’s just another clueless idiot mouthing platitudes instead of arguing actual points.
I, on the other hand, am very knowledgable re blacks, and I find absolutely nothing wrong with anythng Derb said. If you don’t see by now that what we’ve been doing for 50 years is not, in any way, helping matters, but instead is making things far worse, you’re an idiot.
This does not mean that we want to round up all blacks and exterminate them, which is what all the ridiculous hyperventilating seems to assume. It means that if we are to get blacks to stop leeching off society and become productive, we must begin with the truth, not with wishful thinking. Sending boatloads of ignorant blacks to spend half their lives “attending” college, instead of finding them good jobs that they actually can do, is one place to begin.
People say they don’t want to go back to 1960. Except for a few places in the South, blacks, in general, lived in nice neighborhoods, the fathers had good jobs, the mothers were married. I worked with those people, and comparing them to the professional scam artists and serial adulterers who now comprise male blacks, is an insult to those former people.
When 3 percent account for 50 percent of crime in America, that 3 percent needs to be studied, and treated as sick. Just pretending that by giving blacks power over us we’ve fixed the problem is plain stupid, and hardly conservative.

I once served in the United States Marines. I served with many races. I had buddies who would die for me and I for them, race did not come into that agenda.
I have lived and worked among Black folks all my life, I live in a mixed neighborhood now.
We all get along really well.
There are folks who hate other races for many reasons.
I have known whites who did wish for a black holocaust and blacks who felt the same way. Most white and black just want what everyone wants, to live in peace without the worry and hazards of crime, war and discrimination for just being born in one race or another.
MAKE ME CARE:
“Obama Zulu?” Bubba ya never been in the Navy/Marines, Bravo Zulu means A job well done, I believe you can figure it out from there.

I personally do not think I am a smart man, nor wise beyond my time I merely read and comment what I think, feel or surmise and assume. I am not a racist nor a troll. I mean no harm nor wish it on anyone.

Just so ya’ll know, I have a niece who is the product of a white and black marriage. She has a half sister who is white Nobody in the immediate family has any problems with this and the girls are really nice, normal kids who play soccer and chase boys, just your average American family.

You may disagree with Derbyshire’s conclusions, but you cannot dismiss his article as “ignorant” and “uninformed.” If you honestly believe it to be so, explain: ignorant of what? — uninformed about what? (Besides, those two words mean the same thing, so there hardly any need to repeat yourself.) And when you have explained, stand aside and let others judge. Otherwise, it looks like you are only chucking any epithet you happen to think of, for no other purpose than to demonstrate just how angry you are about what Derbyshire has written.

Then again, it would be no easy task to show how John Derbyshire, an always-thoughtful writer who knows a good deal about both science and general culture, can be ignorant about a subject which has interested him for the past decade. So, best of luck.

Politics in America is a racial game. Gerrymandering works precisely because it is possible to predict the behavior of large groups of people based on their race. The Democrats seek to flood the country with non-whites because they know that these people, in the aggregate, vote Democratic. Change a cities, or a states, or a countries demographics and you change its political landscape.

HEP-T brings back some good memories. As Marine Corps brats, my sibs and I were taught only one color mattered and it was Marine Green. There were only two types of people, enlisted and officers. It was a good life.

“When it comes to describing their identity, most Hispanics prefer their family’s country of origin over pan-ethnic terms. Half (51%) say that most often they use their family’s country of origin to describe their identity. That includes such terms as “Mexican” or “Cuban” or “Dominican,” for example. Just one-quarter (24%) say they use the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” to most often to describe their identity. And 21% say they use the term “American” most often.”

“Fully 95% of Hispanics believe it is very important (75%) or somewhat important (20%) for future generations of Hispanics in the U.S. to be able to speak Spanish.”

“When it comes to the size of government, Hispanics are more likely than the general public to say they would rather have a bigger government providing more services than a smaller government with fewer services. Some 75% of Hispanics say this, while 19% say they would rather have a smaller government with fewer services. By contrast, just 41% of the general U.S. public say they want a bigger government, while nearly half (48%) say they want a smaller government.”

In my California town, Latinos are not considered white. Many Latinos here are half white but they are considered Latino. It seems strange to me here in California that Zimmerman could be considered white.

It is the leftism not the race. I had black friends while growing up. My mother was very active in the American Legion and the American Legion Auxiliary. (Like my dad, she was a WWII Vet but my father wasn’t keen on her being the only women at the district meeting of the Legion. To keep the peace she transferred her activism on behalf of veterans to the Auxiliary.) Through the Auxiliary Mom became best friends with a black woman, Eugenia,and I became friends with that woman’s adopted daughter, Chrissie. Eugenia was married to another WWII vet, Vern, a postal supervisor. My father was the supervisor or janitorial and security personnel at a local manufacturing facility. Both couples owned homes in middle class neighborhoods. Chrissie and I were the same age. We had both fought diseases-sickle cell anemia with Chrissie and rheumatic fever with me. The absences from school had left us each a bit the outcast among classmates at our respective grade schools. The long hours alone had also left us both with a pronounced love of books and reading.

The only time race was ever mentioned was after my parents had re-roofed and re-sided our house. With a twinkle in his eye my father suggested Mom call Eugenia and invite her and Vern over to dinner. He would take Vern around the house pointing out all the improvements. Then both families could be amused as the rumors flew we were selling out to a black family.

Race was never an issue until Chrissie began to attended the University of Minnesota. There she met some militant blacks. Soon she was spouting hate whitey rhetoric and declaring she needed authenticity. She swore at the only parents she’d ever known, calling them effing Uncle Toms and sellouts to the capitalist pigs. She also began to do drugs. Eugenia tried to intervene, fearing there would be terrible complications with the drugs because of Chrissie’s sickle cell anemia. She was repeatedly rejected. After a while mom and I stopped asking. Over the next thirty years we never again heard Eugenia talk about Chrissie.

I wonder how many Eugenias and Verns there are across America? Both were educated. They went to Church every Sunday. He held a good job. The always spoke proper English. They urged their adopted daughter and their nieces and nephews to get good educations and pursue good careers. Then some left wing loonies came along and convinced their daughter that to be a genuine black person meant using bad language, doing drugs. acting like a gangsta and becoming a drag on society.

I agree it is often the leftism not the race. I had several black friends while growing up. My mother was very active in the American Legion and the American Legion Auxiliary. (Like my dad, she was a WWII Vet but my father wasn’t keen on her being the only women at the district meeting of the Legion. To keep the peace she transferred her activism on behalf of veterans to the Auxiliary.) Through the Auxiliary Mom became friends with several black woman. One in particular Eugenia, became a very good friend and I became friends with that woman’s adopted daughter, Chrissie.

Our families were mirror images. Eugenia was married to another WWII vet, Vern, a postal supervisor. My father was the supervisor of janitorial and security personnel at a local manufacturing facility. Both couples owned homes in middle class neighborhoods. Chrissie and I were the same age. We had both fought diseases-sickle cell anemia with Chrissie and rheumatic fever with me. The absences from school had left us each a bit the outcast among classmates at our respective grade schools. The long hours alone had also left us both with a pronounced love of books and reading.

The only time race was ever mentioned was after my parents had re-roofed and re-sided our house. With a twinkle in his eye my father suggested Mom call Eugenia and invite her and Vern over to dinner. He would take Vern around the house pointing out all the improvements. Then both families could be amused as the rumors flew we were selling out to a black family.

Race was never an issue until Chrissie began to attended the University of Minnesota. There she met some militant blacks. Soon she was spouting hate whitey rhetoric and declaring she needed authenticity. She swore at the only parents she’d ever known, calling them effing Uncle Toms and sellouts to the capitalist pigs. She also began to do drugs. Eugenia tried to intervene, fearing there would be terrible complications with the drugs because of Chrissie’s sickle cell anemia. She was repeatedly rejected. After a while mom and I stopped asking. Over the next thirty years I never again heard Eugenia talk about Chrissie.

I wonder how many Eugenias and Verns there are across America. Educated, Church going people who hold good jobs, speak proper English and who urge their children and ieces and nephews to get good educations and pursue good careers. Then some left wing loonies come along and convinced their offspring that to be a genuine black person means using bad language, doing drugs, acting like gangstas and becoming drags upon society.

You lost me right here: “much of Derbyshire’s screed was ignorant, uninformed”. I cannot read his piece and detect anything in it that strikes me as ignorant or uninformed. Rather, it reads as unadorned truth-telling and ruthlessly informed.

I think I’m reading weak-kneed-conservative cowardice in your article, a man vying for approval from his “mainstream” leftist counterparts. Tiresome. Get lost please. The right does not need you, to say the least.

Unlike Derbyshire, I do not let people off the hook for their evil behavior just because some of them have low IQs. They still have free will and, like the rest of us, are responsible for everything they do.

Honesty. Something that has been left out of this equation. Racism and stereotyping. Something that can’t be discussed for fear of being called a racist.
I enjoyed reading in the article, and the comments, how people had Black or White best friends. Had friends of other colors or dated in some instances. Do you realize how bigoted this makes you appear? As if the simple fact of having “one” as a confidant somehow removes the racial “bone” from you. Here’s a hint, it didn’t. Is it acknowledgment you seek? Acknowledgment that somehow this doen’t make you a racist?

Stereotyping is a natural response. A deer is standing in a field. A large lion comes upon it. That deer, in a split second, must realize that lion means to do it harm and flee. That same deer sees an elk. In that same second the deer realizes it means no harm and continues on its way.
As humans we do the same. A Black woman sees someone with swastikas on them. In a second she realizes he can mean harm. A White woman sees someone with a Black Panther uniform on. She realizes he can do her harm. This is a NORMAL reaction. Not one made out of racism, but of nature.
It’s hard not to stereotype when you’ve been taught certain color bandannas are of certain gangs. That swastikas and uniforms mean danger. That “hoodies” are the new “show” for “ganstas”. Its how we survive in our communities.

If either of these women see a man who is properly dressed walk up to them, neither would have a worry. If you’re playing into this game, you can’t then call foul when you’re called out.

It’s hard not to be biased when you watch the news and it’s filled with Black violence. Blatant criminal activity ignored because of the color of their skin.

I have a novel idea. Teach your children. Teach them that just because the new gangbangers are wearing their pants around their knees doesn’t mean you can. Because your friends mother lets him run the streets at 11pm doesn’t mean you can. Then think twice before that SHOULD be your child’s friend.
Those in law enforcement ENFORCE the laws. Especially those in the highest seats. Don’t repeatedly give passes BECAUSE of their skin color.
That is, unless you WANT the violence.

We are in the second generation of parental neglect. Started with allowing children to decide what they want. The hippie era if you will. It has progressed to today where parents have no control over their children. I fear the next generation.

We’ve been discussing race in this country for nearly 400 years come 2019. The discussions have been serious and in depth, yet we are where we are today. But today we think we have the answers to all the problems that concern us on the matter without realizing that if the issues could have been reconciled, they would have been by now. We don’t have the answers. The issues will not die away, we will not all become ‘one’ people, not as long as there remains one white man, one black man, one yellow man, one green man. For all we know, the different races reside in different parts of the world because way back in our unknown past, people went their separate ways to avoid conflicts.

What we will continue to be is ‘used’ by those in power to consolidate their power, who will draw strength from our weakness – despite the Clintonian claim during ’96 campaign ‘Strength through Diversity’ (Somwhat Naziish, isn’t it), diversity does not necessarily breed tolerance or acceptance. As we see everyday, and read here at PJM, it can delineate distinct differences which many of us do not, can not, or will not accept.

The issue of race will always be a problem in this country. We need to recognize that before we can come to terms with it.

Writing this I’m currently listening to Billy Stewart’s, ‘Summertime’. A must listen to appreciate.

As someone earlier wrote, ‘..make it their life’s work to remind each other of their differences..’ – I find this to be the case for the ‘civil rights’ dinosaurs in Florida right now. Which I find to be directly OPPOSITE of what the message was intended to reach and eventually obtain. Though obviously NOT their message.

“We might start by stopping the constant generalizing about both races.”

I apologize for rehashing a point if it has already been made, but why is when people discuss “race” they typically mean “black & white”?

Frankly, the word “race” bugs me as we are all human beings. But that being said, there are far more forms of ancestry than just “black & white”. There are people from all over this planet that are accepted & discriminated against due to their ethnicity & ancestry, among other things. But then again, if you truly are “indifferent”, I guess you might not see that.

This issue being so publicly in the news lately has made me re-examine my beliefs.

I was raised with a swastika on my father’s “office” wall. I hated it & all it stood for. We argued about racism regularly. I am so very different than my father. I wish him no ill but I have no respect for him. We no longer communicate.

But all this talk has made me realize something. I too have never in my life once been harmed by anyone whose race I was taught to fear. I have experienced the exact opposite.

I am so very glad that I have been able to raise my boys in such a mix of peoples! Makes me proud to see that they don’t care about a person’s “race”, that they truly respect people for who they are.

Today, I feel all the more proud of the fact that I am who I am WRT the subject.

I moved around a lot as a child & teen. It was hard to make & keep friends. But of all the friends I was lucky enough to have through that, only a few looked like me. I am so glad my father’s ideal had no real effect on me. Those few friends & my time with them are some of my most cherished memories.

Now that Florida special prosecutor Angela Corey has met with and prayed with the family of Trayvon Martin followed by Corey’s decision to arrest George Zimmerman, jail him, and charge him with second degree murder, it would seem that the inflamed passions that have surrounded the case would come to an end, at least until Zimmerman is tried.

Don’t bet on it.

Thursday morning on the “Today” show, Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, made her own, surprising announcement saying unequivocably, “I believe it was an accident, I believe that it just got out of control and he [Zimmerman] couldn’t turn the clock back.”

That was a fair enough assessment.

By Thursday afternoon, Fulton had retracted her statement and declared with an equivalent lack of equivocation on MSNBC-TV that “George Zimmerman stalked my son and murdered him in cold blood.”

An “accident” is a far cry from charges of stalking and cold-blooded murder.

That monumental reversal leads one to suspect Trayvon’s mother either experienced a sea change in her opinion over the course of a few hours or someone sat her down and told her to shut up about accidents if she wanted to hang Zimmerman and maybe earn a few bucks by suing him, the city of Sanford, the Sanford P.D., and anyone else even remotely connected with the case.

A cynic might think the latter scenarios were more probable rather than a considered reassessment of an accidental shooting.

OK, I’m mostly white with a Hispanic grandmother on my Rodriquez side of the Family. Yesterday a big Black building supervisor got in the Elevator with me and we exchanged some pleasantries. I always really enjoyed friendly, funny Blacks because frankly, being from a mixed family, it makes me feel good to treat all Americans like we are one big family. And some I have known are not even American. No difference. Tolerance is soothing to the soul because our family, no surprise, has suffered some from intolerance, though personally I have never known it. Anyway, on my leaving the elevator my momentary friend said “Have a good day, Brother.” I was really pleased to be called Brother by him but was not quick witted enough to reciprocate, but next time I have the chance I will pay the compliment forward. It would do us good to start regarding all of our fellow citizens, of this country or the World as Brothers and Sisters and say it out loud. It made me feel good and I bet it would for others. America and Lady Liberty have always been beacons to the World, and let me tell you. Our country has been through the steel forge on the issue of race. We have suffered but I bet, at least on Black and White, we are way ahead of most unipolar countries. We’ve led before. Let’s lead forward from the front again. It may just be our most important historical mission which, to put it in the perspective of the post-racial Spanish/white conservatives like myself is to put race behind us and behind everyone who is intelligent as well. Let the racists dwell in the netherworld while we can head to the light.

You are more fortunate than you will ever know. You have had the luxury of never having to consider race in “any decision I’ve made about where to live, where to work, or who my friends are” with regard to your own self-preservation.

The rest of us don’t get to choose our enemies. Because we ourselves (who are not members of any protected group) are NOT the aggressors, our enemies choose US.

The black lynch mob rules the day in the American body politic. They are predators, we are prey, and the government (at all levels!) sides with our enemies.

>>>>>>>>>You lost me right here: “much of Derbyshire’s screed was ignorant, uninformed”. I cannot read his piece and detect anything in it that strikes me as ignorant or uninformed. Rather, it reads as unadorned truth-telling and ruthlessly informed.

Well, I dunno. The bottom line of his advice was: “Kids, avoid black people. They are dangerous because they are stupid.” Then there are all kinds of statistical excuses why this isn’t REALLY racism. But no racist (against any group) is ever a racist for NO reason; there’s always some facts marshalled to the rescue.